Craigowerhouse

This name has evolved rather strangely: it would seem to have started life in the Gaelic-speaking period as G creag g(h)obhair ‘goat rock’, or *creag a’ ghobair ‘rock of the goat’, referring to a rock or crag on this basalt hill, a large part of which has now been quarried away, or perhaps even referring to the hill itself. Later, probably in the early modern period, a house was built here, taking the name Craigower House. Following the disappearance of the house, the hill then became known by the name of the house. By the time of the first OS (early 1850s), no building is recorded here, just a ‘small wooded eminence’ and ‘a large whinstone quarry ... the property of the Western Bank of Scotland’ (OS Name Book 51, 15).